What you need to know
- NVIDIA's market cap rose over 94% since the start of 2023, which is an increase of $329 billion.
- The surge in stock value was likely due to high interest in artificial intelligence, which relies on NVIDIA chips.
- Researchers estimate that 30,000 NVIDIA A100 GPUs are needed to power ChatGPT alone.
NVIDIA's market cap has skyrocketed over the last four months, increasing by over 94% since the start of this year (via The Street). The uptick is likely due to NVIDIA's connection to artificial intelligence. While not a new form of technology, AI has been in the public spotlight since OpenAI launched ChatGPT late last year. Microsoft incorporating ChatGPT into Bing and Google announcing its Bard chatbot put even more of a spotlight on AI.
Whether ChatGPT, Bard, or another similar form of AI, a large amount of computational power is required to train and power artificial intelligence. That power comes largely from chips made by companies like NVIDIA.
Researchers estimate that ChatGPT needs 30,000 NVIDIA A100 GPUs to operate. Those GPUs cost between $10,000 and $15,000 a piece, meaning NVIDIA could make up to $300 million in revenue off ChatGPT.
With figures like that being shared by experts, it's not surprising to see NVIDIA's stock value go up. The company sat at a total market cap of almost $690 billion on April 19, 2023. This year alone, NVIDIA's market cap has gone up $329 billion.
Market cap isn't the only way to evaluate how a company is doing, but it's an important metric when looking at an organization at a macro scale. Stock value fluctuates quickly, making any individual day too small of a sample size to measure a company. But overall trends can provide insight.
NVIDIA stock peaked at $329.85 back in November 2021 (via Yahoo). It dipped to as low as $112.27 in October 2022. It then climbed a bit to 146.12 to end the year. Now, thanks in part to the surge of interest in AI, NVIDIA stock is up to $270.64. That's not all the way back to the high of a couple years ago, but it's a sizeable shift.
Of course, AI isn't the only source of demand for NVIDIA chips. GPUs from the company, such as those in the RTX 40 Series, are popular among gamers and creators. But there's a reasonable expectation that NVIDIA's sudden surge in value is due, at least in part, to artificial intelligence.
With AI drawing interest as quickly as it draws power, Microsoft is also looking to get in on the action. Microsoft has reportedly been testing its own AI chip, which is codenamed Athena, since 2019. If used to train and power AI, that chip could save Microsoft quite a bit of money, since the tech giant would be able to use its own hardware rather than relying on NVIDIA.
